Chapter 4: The real world Part 1

"Let's talk about the lost kingdoms. Thanks to their young adults returning their technology are evolving at an incredible pace. We cannot secretly watch over them for our entertainment anymore."

A female anchor talks on a show being broadcasted throughout the city. "They aren't trapped in the past and are being catapulted into our level of society."

"I am sure you all know that the lost kingdoms were found a little over fifty years ago. Also that they were deemed worthless to improve and would suit better to be secretly watched for our entertainment. The societies that we found via drones through uncharted areas were still in the middle ages."

"The real question isn't if they are going to find out about us, but how they will react with their new found power. We will have to be looking into this issue for years to come, but as of right now they seem too preoccupied with conquering each other."

"In other news one of the first returnees Hiro reveals his future plans for him and his fellow returnees in an exclusive interview from yours truly."

-Sounds interesting, but I gotta head to my next job. If what he said is correct if I cut behind this alleyway I should save a couple minutes.-

The familiar blue haired red eyed kid runs into an empty alleyway but then his body is surrounded by a familiar yet hated light. Right after that the feeling of nearly puking after your wildest roller coaster ride overwhelms him.

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In a barely lit room a normal looking old man and a young lady wearing a crimson red robe with the hood down revealing her fiery red hair. She is probably not even 16 yet.

"Did it work?" A young lady with fire like red hair eagerly asks the elderly old man.

"I don't know, but don't you have somewhere to be?" The old man asks wearily to the energetic girl.

"But elder, I want to be one of the first people to see our new hero." She complains to the elder in her annoying childlike voice.

"No buts! Now go child." After she leaves Ghost is immediately summoned the very same room that they were arguing in.

-Huh, I thought that it was impossible to be summoned again and this doesn't look like the same place as the last time.-

"Old man are you ok? Old man! I'm sorry did I shock you suddenly appearing?" An older man suddenly falls to the ground after seeing who he summoned in the end.

The old man slowly awakens. "It's ok youngster don't worry about me. You just reminded me of a demon that just recently destroyed most of my disciple's race."

"Umm, did that demon use blood magic?" Ghost askes noticing familiar yet much longer ears like the unknown.

"Yes, how'd you know?"

"Did that race have shorter ears than you but longer than an average human?"

"... You are the demon,, aren't you? Great I copied the monsters magic circle and get the exact same results."

"I don't know what I was expecting. This was an exact replica of the original that was used to summon you. Kill me now and finish your job I guess, devil."

"Wait! Why would I kill a harmless old man? I killed the unknown because they were attacking the kingdom that I was summoned to."

"Attacking! Ha, they didn't want to attack but the 'king of the world' said that all we had was his property. If my disciple didn't fight back they would've been wiped out!"

"He started the war, he shed the first blood, and when things got bad for him he summoned you to turn the war around."

Ghost seems to skeptical at best at the thought of him being summoned to clean up a mess the king made.

"No way that king may have been arrogant, but I don't see him, the ruler of such a prosperous kingdom, purposely starting a war that he wasn't sure that he could win."

"Prosperous! My boy,, did you even look at any of the cities or villages?"

"Just the capital and one other village that was about to be attacked why?"

"Then you might have misunderstood something about this world during your short visit. Here take this."

He hands him the same mask that the leader of the unknown was wearing. "You're going to be my new disciple and fix the wrong that you caused."

"Wait, how do I know you are telling the truth. For all,, I know you could be the one that is lying!"

"How about this. You take that mask with you and go find who is really telling the truth."

"I get the whole find out what the truth is myself, but why do I have to wear a mask that will put a target on my back?"

"Also, here wear this." He gives him a pitch black cloak.

"Your features are famous. A young blue-haired red eye kid. Anyone would recognize you as their hero and would, of course, treat you differently. You want to see the real world so you will have to hide your identity of course."

"Fine, I will wear these, but only until I'm sure that this world is how I thought it was."

"The cloak has a rare enchantment to increase its weight till the user can barely move. As you wear it you will have some of your basic training down for being my disciple, as you are right now you're far too weak to learn from me."

"It will be good all around training, but I don't recommend wearing that twenty-four seven. While you have to wear it in public to hide your identity try not to anger anyone."

"If you get attacked while wearing it you're pretty much doomed even if you manage to take it off because you will be exhausted. If you run into a problem then you can turn off the effect for a short time."

"Thank you for this precious gift. Question you copied the kings summoning circle?"

"We have spies in his capital who gave me a miniature copy of it and I recreated it full size. It's a nasty circle."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'll tell you more after your my true disciple can't give away all my secrets to someone who can turn any second can I?"

"True, I'm surprised that you even mentioned that you have a spy in the capital capable of copying a magic circle."

"That was a slip of the tongue, but there isn't really anything that I think we should hide from you."

"The only reason why I decided to hide things from you is that my fellow clansmen will be mad at me for telling you everything by myself."

"Are you sure that it's ok for me to just leave without even seeing anyone. I am the one that you summoned, so I guess I'm a hero in their eyes."

"It's fine. It will make them think that you are undergoing secret training just for them."

"Well,, I guess I'll be off."

-He sure is a nice old man. Kind of reminds me of Liz, but please be trying to trick me. I don't know how I am going to handle it if I really was killing innocents instead of invaders.-

He puts on the cloak to see how heavy it really is and nearly falls over due to the weight.

-He wasn't kidding about the weight!-

He immediately takes it off, because he can't even move with it on.

- I should probably have asked for a map before leaving or at least directions to the nearest city. Oh well, thankfully we aren't in the middle of a forest.-

Just open plains not a tree in sight. All there is grass.

"Ah, the air here feels great back on earth it's starting to feel too polluted. I heard that people were not only brought to magic kingdom's like this but highly advanced civilizations as well."

"I wonder why they had they had the need to take someone from a less advanced world and bring them to a more advanced world."

The ground starts to shake violently. -Earthquake?- A hill shoots up into the sky. Instant mountains?

Then the hill starts to shake revealing a hill-sized snail. With an earthen shell.

-Where is some salt when you need it.-

"Wow, it's so big. Be a good giant snail and please don't attack me. I don't want to hurt you." The snail's right eye come crashing down at Ghost.

Blood starts shooting out from the inside of Ghost's cloak turning into a blood barrier. The blood barrier blocks the eye three inches away from his head.

Then he sends some blood below it and transforms it into a spike. "There we go that should have pierced its heart. Or not."

The other eye comes crashing down and collides with his blood barrier-shattering it. The eye looks like it's hardened with earth magic.

"Why didn't that spike kill it. I could've sworn I was aiming for its heart. Let's try this again. Oh, so that's why."

He creates a blood bullet and then shoots it at the snail's left lung. But, it can't pierce the snail's slippery skin. "Strange, let's try this again."

He fires off another but this time making it spin as fast as it can go. "Bingo." It pierces and then explodes in the snail's lung killing it.

"The snails are leaking acid just like I thought. He got rid of all the blood that was below him before I could use it to pierce him. I think it's a he. I hope this plain isn't filled with these."

He continues walking eventually seeing a town with spiked wood walls surrounding it.

"You over there. Yes, you." A guard on top of a wooden barricade yells at him. "How are you alive?"

-Does he think that I'm the leader from before, or could he have somehow recognized that I'm the hero because I'm not wearing my cloak.-

"What do you mean by that good sir? Is it not normal for one to be alive?"

"The place you just left from is known as the plains of agony. It might not be as big as the infinite desert or the forest, but the odds of you surviving in there is less than one percent."

"It tricks the travelers into thinking that it is a peaceful place, but in reality under the surface of the tranquil plain is filled with monsters that bury themselves."

The guards face turning pale, while he is thinking about the terrors of the plain. "The most frightening of them has a shell on its back and two long eyes that slam down on you."

"There have been rumors of another beast equal to it but only our king has lived in the plains long enough to even see the first beast. Not even he will use it as a shortcut. So I shall repeat myself how are you alive?"

"Even with that new information, I still don't know the answer to your question. I simply walked through the plains. No monsters decided to attack me and here I am. I thought that there were no monsters and it was a peaceful place."

"You're lying there once anyone sets a foot the monster's territory they immediately attack. No matter who you are."

"Well,, I guess I got lucky. Can I enter this village? Also what is its name as you probably guessed I got lost and don't know where I am."

"Well, dwarf this city's name is Derhum. I don't know how one of you kind has gotten so far away from home, but you may enter as long as you don't cause any trouble ok?"

"Yes sir, I wasn't planning on causing any trouble just seeing around and learning about your culture. I am on a journey to find myself and I think seeing other people's way of life will help me find it. I guess me getting lost was a guide to this village."

The guards face looks confused then gives up and returns to normal. "Weird but whatever you say. You look a little weird for a dwarf, but I guess that's why you are finding yourself."

"There isn't much to see here anymore. Everything changed after the hunters found better places to train in the forest then here."

"This used to be a big gathering place for nobles wanting to train their guards and children in magic against monsters."

"You never knew when one might decide to attack back then. Now with the new alert technology,, it is less of a problem."

"I see that's good. Well,, I will be off it was nice talking to you."

"Don't make me have to drag you into our special jail."

"I promise you I don't want to see that part of the town."

-Maybe I should keep pretending to be a dwarf throughout the rest of my travels. An eleven-year-old kid traveling alone will look suspicious no matter wherever you are. Luckily my voice seems to be the only thing that has became more adult like.-

The inside of the town is poor. The houses, if you can call them that, are made out of straw. They look even worse than Liz's.

The streets are littered with various trash, maybe even feces. The stench that is coming out of the village would make anyone with a weak stomach hurl.

-God, what is this stench? It is almost as bad as the smell from the first battle. How could a city look this bad? It is called a city, so villages have to be worse right? The village that I went to a little better than this.-

"Excuse me,, ma'am." Ghost decides to ask an older lady since he has always been better around the older folk.

"Yes,, young lad?"

"Has this town always been this bad?"

"Oh no. Believe it or not, this town was actually a lot nicer. Back when the nobles still came to hunt and practice it was a wonderful place."

"There were regulations on just about everything and even many different types of stores." She seems to be reminiscing about the wonderful past and why she ended up retiring here.

"After they left it was still ok, but a year ago the king suddenly stopped caring about the world. He has never left his castle ever since."

"Without the king giving us a little bit of leeway with the nobles the taxes shot up and no one could do anything about it. We lost the little money and items we owned. I lost most of my retirement money and had to get a job again."

"The only good thing that came out of it was using the unknown to figure out if a monster will attack or not. That's how they survived in the forest. They can tell if a monster is going to attack them or not if they stay in a place for a long enough time. It's a weird ability really."

"Thank you. I think that you have given me more information than I was hoping for. I hope that this town can return to its former glory. So, the remnants of the unknown that the hero decided not to harm became slaves?"

"What are you talking about? The hero killed every unknown that he fought against. He wasn't a benevolent hero. I don't know what the dwarves know about him, but he cold-heartedly killed every single unknown that went against him."

"The forts that were attacked and defended three times by him had its name changed to the blood fort, because of how much blood was spilled trying to take it. The hero used also blood magic, so the people who stayed in the fort thought it was a good tribute to the nameless hero."

I can feel Ghosts rage at the fact that the common folk views him as such a vicious figure. Of the commoners view him like this then it's hard to imagine how the unknown feel.

"What I heard was that the hero was on a revenge quest because the unknown took someone precious from him."

He tries his best to change the people's view on him even though nothing will change and he'll probably go down in history as a devil.

"I also heard that he was a kind hero that protected the people near the fort and helped them reach it before the unknown army came down on them."

"He personally fought against the enemy leader instead of using the forts army to save lives."

"Well this city isn't exactly the best place to find information, so you may be right. But, what I said I think everyone here in Derhum will say if you ask about the hero."

"He wasn't a kind hero that would protect the weak. I also never heard of another person being brought here beside him."

Ghost seems to have given up on changing their outlook of him after she mentioned that his sister didn't exist.

The only one that can change how the commonwealth views him is the king.

"Well,, my information also doesn't have a way to be one hundred percent true. The only person who knows exactly what really happened is the hero and only him. What we know for sure is he saved the blood fort and the rest of the kingdom."

"I don't know maybe he shouldn't have saved us. We don't know what the unknown would have done to us, but the nobles in the capital have been the only ones that are living happily."

"They get to live without worry and have hobbies. They don't really have to work they can have anything they want."

"Well, it is not like they were always like that, right?"

Ghosts hidden rage almost exploded out after she mentioned that what he did might have been useless. The unknown still ended up massacring the various villages they came across!

"Well with the enslavement of the unknown they had to do even less work. Back when we didn't know if a monster would attack a town the guards were mandated to have one mage with them. A mage,, of course,, is automatically a wealthy individual, so they did have a job to do."

As shown by Sophia barely becoming a noble it doesn't automatically make you a noble of you can cast some spells. The people of this town probably think a mage is automatically a noble because of how expensive it is.

"But, now that the unknown has taken away the need to have watched for monsters the nobles don't have a real job in any of the villages."

"So, they don't live in any of the villages anymore and only live in places that they deemed worthy of their presence."

"Since they aren't living in any of the villages they don't care about how bad it is here anymore and raised taxes."

She smiles weakly and then continues. "The king was once a great man who stood up for the poor because he wasn't born as the crown prince."

It is strange that a society with such strong power has a hereditary royalty instead of a strong rule over the weak.

"He worked his way to the top. We all respected him for that, but now he seems like any other noble. I can't believe that one day he suddenly stopped caring about anything."

You can't help but wonder about what happened to the actual crown prince if he didn't become king. Well,, it was probably a normal struggle for the throne that happens.

"It almost makes me believe that he found something during the hero's visit." She takes a deep breath in and out obviously not used to talking so much.

"I think this old woman man has talked long enough. I thank you for listening to my words. It usually isn't a good idea to speak out about the king as I did. Even though he has suddenly locked himself away people still look up to him. Some even say that the nobles captured him and locked him up."

"No need to thank me you gave me information that I would never have hoped to find in a small village such as this. It really explained a lot to me about my standing in this big place. It is not as wonderful as I thought it would be. Sigh! Maybe, I should just return home and find a place there."

Ghost looks towards the sky thinking about how his brand new job actually offered him free room and board. -Wonder if they thought I ran away.-

"I think that would be a great idea. If you can find your way back that is."

"I think I know the way back now, but just in case where is the next nearest human settlement. I want to see another village to compare the two. If they are similar enough then that explains that what I see here is the norm and then I should really just head to my nice and cleaner home."

-But I won't not till I fix the wrong that I have done.-

"If you continue on the path just outside the gate and follow it to wherever it leads you should find a village in a couple of weeks maybe a month depending on your speed."

"I recommend waiting for the supply caravan to leave for the next city. There are bandits out there and you seem to be the sort of person that they would target. The next village is called Belin. Which was named after the king."

"It used to be a great town that was showered with care and affection by the king Belin, but not even it was spared from the onslaught of the nobles. The king didn't even pay any attention to it."

Ghost has an internal debate about whether or not it would be a good idea to join a random group of people but ends up deciding that he could do some good for once if he joined them.

"I would rather go alone, but if there really is a high chance of bandit attack I think waiting for a caravan would be better for me. Do you know when they usually come and go?"

"It is one of my jobs as a village elder to know such things so yes. I can probably convince them to take along one more person. You're a dwarf which is rare around these parts and you look a little different than the normal dwarf."

She stops to take a breath and then stares at him up and down. Probably wondering if he was a runaway child instead of a dwarf.

Honestly, he is probably pushing it pretending to be a dwarf, but it's probably the best excuse he can have for him traveling.

"You may be taller than most of your kind, but that would just make you look like an item to be picked up and kept by some nobles. Don't worry the caravan is filled with nice people who even took in an unknown. Not as a slave, but as a family member."

"They sound like good people and I once again thank you for all that you have done for me. Thanks to you everything feels a little bit clearer. I hope that life in this village returns back even better than what it once was." Ghost half bows to her showing his thanks and gratitude.

"The caravan will leave in a couple of minutes, so you better hurry. They rarely come here, so I thought I should mention them to you. Once you meet them to tell them that one of the elders asked them to take you to the next village!"

Ghost hears her say as he bolts away towards the town exit.

-I never learned her name. Maybe someone in the caravan knows it.-

Coming into his narrow vision are wagons being pulled by horses. "Wait! Don't leave the elder told me that I should join you!"

He shouts towards the large caravan. The mask obstructs his breath as he runs since he doesn't know to use it.

He thanks the divine that he already figured out how to turn off the cloaks weight effects. Luckily it may not have eye holes on the outside, but there isn't anything blocking his vision on the inside.